O/T:- Ukraine [Incorporating 'Congrats to Russia' thread]

[i961pie]

I’m just pointing out the facts. No need to act sore.

Russian economists actually put Russia’s contraction at ~3% so I went with the higher western figure.

As for Ukraine not needing a working economy to win the war because they’re being supplied by everyone else, well that may well be in jeopardy too. The soon to be House majority leader in the US said ‘no more blank cheques for Ukraine’... and Hungary just put the kibosh on the EU loaning/gifting Ukraine any more money, including releasing funds that have already been promised. How does this impact your assessment?

You also say that 100s of thousands of Russians have left the country. That’s true! But meanwhile Ukraine has lost ~7.6 million people, with ~2.85m of them going to... Russia!

And as for Western countries not going into recession... yikes, you really haven’t been following the news, have you?

As many thoughtful analysts have long predicted - Russia will sooner destroy Ukraine than see it join NATO. To be honest, I don’t think the ‘collective west’ really cares if Ukraine gets destroyed.

https://apnews.com/article/russia-uk...a4d238ec076f4a

https://www.politico.eu/article/germ...d-ukraine/amp/

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...will-linger-on

For God's sake stop quoting the Russian propaganda no one believes it apart from you.

[Old_pie]

I know this is too complicated for you, so I'll try to use small words. Ukraine doesn't need a working economy to fight the war, or win the war, because they're supplied by everyone else. And at no point have I claimed or implied Ukraine's economy is in any way doing well.

I also think the 4.5% figure for Russia's economy quoted above uses official Kremlin data, which is probably made up of lies like all of their data. The real numbers for Russia are almost certainly worse, but even at 4.5% negative growth - that's a recession. How many other "advanced" economies are in recession right now?

And think about the long term. Their major exports are oil and gas... oil is projected to start trending down, permanently, later this decade, and their gas exports are collapsing already. Meanwhile, they've lost an unknown but likely significant number of people to death and injury in the war, and hundreds of thousands have fled the country to stay out of it. The people who have left are very likely to be the more qualified and wealthy demographics. That bodes very, very poorly for Russia's long term economic future.

And BTW I think your openly gloating about the damage done to Ukraine reflects extremely poorly on you.

Anyone can play Andy's game finding something to support a view. I'll see him and raise him 2:

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/02/russ...esilience.html

“Looking ahead, there is no path out of economic oblivion for Russia as long as the allied countries remain unified in maintaining and increasing sanctions pressure against Russia,” the report concluded.

“Defeatist headlines arguing that Russia’s economy has bounced back are simply not factual – the facts are that, by any metric and on any level, the Russian economy is reeling, and now is not the time to step on the brakes.

This war was supposed to have been over in 3 days. Russia has now bought itself a lifetime of distrust, trade restrictions, loss of economic power, displayed its armed forces as being a relic of WWII and has become the pariah of the world.

If they "win" parts of Ukraine there will be decades of resistance to come. A massive mistake when only a decade or so ago they looked as though they were opening up to common sense. Run by corrupted thugs and bullies who kept thinking they could get away with their dirty tactics whilst sneering as they met World leaders. Putin can't even turn up at the G20 in Bali whilst even China's Xi Jinping is meeting Biden.

They should get out, pay reparations, say sorry, replace Putin and keep a low profile for the next 50 years.

[TheBlackHorse]

... oh come on Banjo - don't you get even the slightest amusement from his verbiage ...?

[Jampie]

I’m just pointing out the facts. No need to act sore.

Russian economists actually put Russia’s contraction at ~3% so I went with the higher western figure.

Heh. How many years in the gulag do they get for discrediting the Russian economy if they don't report Kremlin approved figures? Or do they just have an "accident"?

Regarding facts, I am honestly not sure you could pick one out of a lineup at this point.

As for Ukraine not needing a working economy to win the war because they’re being supplied by everyone else, well that may well be in jeopardy too. The soon to be House majority leader in the US said ‘no more blank cheques for Ukraine’... and Hungary just put the kibosh on the EU loaning/gifting Ukraine any more money, including releasing funds that have already been promised. How does this impact your assessment?

It basically doesn't. After the Red Trickle, the pro-Russia wing of the Republican party look like having very little power. When the new Congress sits in January, Republicans will have at most a rather narrow majority. All of that aside, they won't be able to cancel Lend Lease which means support for Ukraine will continue for likely the rest of Biden's presidency. Under Lend Lease terms, Congress have no say over what's sent, but Ukraine will need to eventually pay it all back, which is not ideal for their postwar economy.

And that's just US aid. Most other nations involved are more committed now than they were previously, not the other way around. Ukraine's enormous successes on the battlefield have virtually guaranteed continued aid into the future.

Hungary stonewalling Ukraine aid is basically situation normal. They will need to negotiate because Hungary itself needs aid. So I think it's likely that impasse will be resolved.

You also say that 100s of thousands of Russians have left the country. That’s true! But meanwhile Ukraine has lost ~7.6 million people, with ~2.85m of them going to... Russia!

And as for Western countries not going into recession... yikes, you really haven’t been following the news, have you?

As many thoughtful analysts have long predicted - Russia will sooner destroy Ukraine than see it join NATO. To be honest, I don’t think the ‘collective west’ really cares if Ukraine gets destroyed.

Where do you get 2.85m going to Russia from? Sounds high.

And most of the people Ukraine has "lost" will be refugees who are likely to return post war. Anyone who's gone to Russia might have trouble returning in future of course because it's a totalitarian hell hole desperate to keep any population it can... but they've been unable to stop their own people leaving so far, so there's hope there.

Regarding NATO: Once the war ends, bilateral security agreements, specifically Ukraine - US and Ukraine-UK (and others), or perhaps a multi-nation security agreement to protect them while NATO membership gets sorted, are very likely.

While Russia obviously has no say in who joins NATO or not, I would expect Hungary and Turkey to stonewall for ages and slow it down, so a separate security agreement in the immediate postwar period is likely.

Regarding Russia destroying Ukraine: With what? Short of strategic nuclear weapons, they have no such capability.

And I find it interesting that you've essentially given up trying to convince anybody that Russia isn't massively losing the war, and you've pinned your hopes on economics instead. That would be a good tactic if only you had the faintest comprehension how economics works.

The negative economic conditions afflicting the developed world (outside of Ukraine and Russia) are predominantly caused by supply-restriction inflation. That is to say, the availability of certain essentials (in this case oil and gas) is lower than demand, driving up prices, which is inflation. While that's certainly nasty and annoying in the short term (12-36 months), the benefit of a free market economy is that high prices drive supply increases, so the condition is almost always temporary.

In this case, while oil and gas have production capacity issues, energy itself does not, and every (intelligently run) developed economy is currently accelerating the transition to energy sources that have no practical capacity constraints and whose long term costs will be much lower and trending down.

As a result, while some countries will enter recession (2 or more consecutive quarters of negative growth), this will be a temporary setback and the long term outlook is very positive. Furthermore, in most cases I would expect that recession to be relatively low magnitude. The inflation itself is actually going to be more problematic for most households.

On the other hand, the economic conditions afflicting Russia right now are far more serious. The sanctions, which aren't going away any time soon, will have deep, long term impacts limiting production capacity of everything more complicated than raw materials. Even their oil production is likely to suffer significant supply issues due to a lack of specialist knowledge and equipment, much of which always came from "the west". And lot of Russians who know how to operate stuff have now left. More are likely to follow.

On top of that, the long term prospects for Russia's two major exports are absolutely dire. Their pipelined gas exports have already crashed and most of their customers have already moved on. For Oil, particularly from 2025 onward (although it could start at late as 2030, but this war is accelerating the process), demand for oil is expected to fall, and keep falling for a very long time, as it will no longer be competitive for transport energy against other sources (mostly electricity). This is going to be an abject disaster for oil producing nations, and the condition will be permanent. OPEC will transition from being able to set the global price of oil (because they control enough of the production to restrict supply) to having to compete with each other to fulfil dwindling demand. That will crash the price of oil down to a level where it can compete as a transport fuel again.

While that isn't smashing news for any oil-exporting nation, it's particularly terrible for Russia as they already have a higher average production cost than their soon-to-be competitors in the middle east. And without western knowledge or technology, their production costs are likely to trend up. So I would say the prospects for Russia's economy in the latter half of this decade, and the next decade, are "likely economic collapse."

I would love to see them evade this issue but I hold out little hope for it. Putin has doubled down on everything that leads to Russia's collapse, and right now to me this is like watching a slow-motion train crash.

On the other hand, obviously falling energy prices, including transportation energy prices, will be hugely beneficial for everyone else, and the likely economic conditions for other developed nations are quite positive during the same period.

[drillerpie]

Where do you get 2.85m going to Russia from? Sounds high.

It could well be true. If you evacuate from Russian held territory you have to go to (via filtration camps) to Russia, often to unappealing remote villages, to solve Russia's demographic crisis.

Unaccompanied/orphaned children are also often sent for adoption to places like this in Russia , rather than being placed with family in other parts of Ukraine, also to solve the problem of an ageing Russian population (under the pretence of so-called denazification).

[Jampie]

It could well be true. If you evacuate from Russian held territory you have to go to (via filtration camps) to Russia, often to unappealing remote villages, to solve Russia's demographic crisis.

Unaccompanied/orphaned children are also often sent for adoption to places like this in Russia , rather than being placed with family in other parts of Ukraine, also to solve the problem of an ageing Russian population (under the pretence of so-called denazification).

Kherson Oblast prewar pop: 1,016,707

Zaporizhzhia Oblast prewar pop: 1,666,515

Combined 2.7M (rounding up)

Russia has never controlled 100% of either, but even if they had, and even if they had completely depopulated both, which obviously they've done nothing of the sort, the numbers don't add up to 2.85M.

That's why I say it sounds high.

[drillerpie]

Kherson Oblast prewar pop: 1,016,707

Zaporizhzhia Oblast prewar pop: 1,666,515

Combined 2.7M (rounding up)

Russia has never controlled 100% of either, but even if they had, and even if they had completely depopulated both, which obviously they've done nothing of the sort, the numbers don't add up to 2.85M.

That's why I say it sounds high.

Yeah but there are other places where Russia is in control and all refugees will be distributed in Russia as I said.

Also there will be people in border regions with family in Russia, not to mention pro-Russian Ukranians who will have chosen to go there. Of all the lies Russia tells I don't think this is up there.

[Old_pie]

In this case, while oil and gas have production capacity issues, energy itself does not, and every (intelligently run) developed economy is currently accelerating the transition to energy sources that have no practical capacity constraints and whose long term costs will be much lower and trending down.

As a result, while some countries will enter recession (2 or more consecutive quarters of negative growth), this will be a temporary setback and the long term outlook is very positive. Furthermore, in most cases I would expect that recession to be relatively low magnitude. The inflation itself is actually going to be more problematic for most households.

On the other hand, the economic conditions afflicting Russia right now are far more serious. The sanctions, which aren't going away any time soon, will have deep, long term impacts limiting production capacity of everything more complicated than raw materials. Even their oil production is likely to suffer significant supply issues due to a lack of specialist knowledge and equipment, much of which always came from "the west". And lot of Russians who know how to operate stuff have now left. More are likely to follow.

On top of that, the long term prospects for Russia's two major exports are absolutely dire. Their pipelined gas exports have already crashed and most of their customers have already moved on. For Oil, particularly from 2025 onward (although it could start at late as 2030, but this war is accelerating the process), demand for oil is expected to fall, and keep falling for a very long time, as it will no longer be competitive for transport energy against other sources (mostly electricity). This is going to be an abject disaster for oil producing nations, and the condition will be permanent. OPEC will transition from being able to set the global price of oil (because they control enough of the production to restrict supply) to having to compete with each other to fulfil dwindling demand. That will crash the price of oil down to a level where it can compete as a transport fuel again.

While that isn't smashing news for any oil-exporting nation, it's particularly terrible for Russia as they already have a higher average production cost than their soon-to-be competitors in the middle east. And without western knowledge or technology, their production costs are likely to trend up. So I would say the prospects for Russia's economy in the latter half of this decade, and the next decade, are "likely economic collapse."

I would love to see them evade this issue but I hold out little hope for it. Putin has doubled down on everything that leads to Russia's collapse, and right now to me this is like watching a slow-motion train crash.

On the other hand, obviously falling energy prices, including transportation energy prices, will be hugely beneficial for everyone else, and the likely economic conditions for other developed nations are quite positive during the same period.

Economically Russia have shot themselves in the foot. From the G20 in Bali:


From a forum which was co-hosted by von der Leyen, US President Joe Biden, and his Indonesian counterpart Joko Widodo - https://jakartaglobe.id/business/les...at-bali-summit

“What is the situation in the EU? We have decided to diversify completely away from the Russian fossil fuels,” she said.

“We have understood and learned our lesson that it was an unhealthy dependency, unsustainable, and we want reliable and forward-looking connections. And this is why we’re launching the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment.”

The initiative is expected to establish a long-term and reliable partnership in energy supplies as the EU wants “to leapfrog to clean energy” -- not only to have it home-grown but also to import it.

“From the European side, the contribution is so-called Global Gateway, it’s our 300 billion euros investment program for abroad for the next five years, combined with the wish to harness the power and knowledge of the private sector,” von der Leyen said.

[Jampie]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...re-occupation/

I'm linking it, but it's not pleasant reading. Very early days into this investigation but it sounds like it was war crimes as usual for Russia in Kherson.

[frenchmagpie]

Thank you Jampie for your knowledge and humanity. It's obvious to most where the crime lies but clearly some are down the Russia Today rabbit hole, which is distasteful. It's helpful to have some facts and counterpoints to support that.